A Meeting as I Understood It

When you wake up in Jangas—you really have no idea what you're going to do that day. Wednesdays are health post days—days I accompany a member of the health post to a “caserio” or smaller outlying town outside of Jangas.

I was ready to wake up for my 8:30 appointment w/ the health post. My host mom confirmed through the window that don Zeñon my socio-comunitario had come to say that we had a meeting at 8:30—in my unconscious state of sleeping I somewhere found the Spanish (thank god she doesn't just speak Quechua) to say that I knew and would be there. After my breakfast of REAL oatmeal and bananas (here they like to drink things instead of eat them—drinkable Quaker oatmeal? Drinkable yogurt? What the fuck?)--I headed down for the health post (2 minutes from my house--as is mostly everything).

In one of the communications wires got crossed, and we started at 9:30 instead—specific timing here is not a big deal. The way I figure it is in the States we work events around time, and here they work time around events—just a different way of looking at things—which as culturally sensitive as I try to be, still can get annoying at times, but often ends in me laughing at myself and the situation (in training I was told once by my host family that we were going to visit their family a couple towns over at 8:00 for breakfast—I rose early on Sunday for the occasion, was ready to go, and if I recall we left at about noon and ended up having lunch instead. On a second occasion we decided to have a party based around the final world cup game—by the time we got back from buying supplies for the party, the game was in its 70th minute)--once again, time based around events.

Back to today—I arrived at the healthpost at 9:30, when quickly my friend Raúl who's a nurse there invited me to a “reunión” at 4:40 later that day in Jahua (we ended up leaving at 5:10, haha), and don Zeñon my “sociocomunitario” counterpart and I headed out to Lluncu a closeby smaller town. In Peace Corps you don't have to know what you're doing before you sign up for it—a meeting w/ Raúl on an unknown subject? Hell yeah I'll be there. Head out into Lluncu w/ don Zeñon? What time?

The health post has a program where they are working to better people's houses with cleaner methods of cooking and better organization. Today we were going to help people put together what I understood as storage containers for plates and utensils—sometimes things don't have to make sense—it's something to do. We went to three different houses—at one the woman was working on another project—next week she said, at the other, the woman didn't have the adobe (good insulating bricks made of mud and straw) sufficient for the project, and at the third house the woman wasn't there. As we walked and talked on the way down, don Zeñon put it simply: “no hemos hecho nada” we haven't done anything—but that's how it goes sometimes. On the way down don Zeñon talked to me about some of the problems here in Jangas—a lot have to do with “ancianos” (old people) health problems. There is also problems of illiteracy w/ the older generation and children denutrition (though this has improved) and kids getting parasites from bad water (and bad water practices). Finally he mentioned pregnancies—how many women in the campo still don't want to come to hospitals or follow modern medicine practices throughout their pregnancies. This comes up later.

After coming down I ate lunch w/ my host mom (potatoes, cabbage, flour soup, and avacado sandwiches), and washed clothes for 2 hours—I still suck at this, my friend Beth that lives nearby says she does it when her host mom is away so that her host mom doesn't end up taking over after she's done it incorrectly. I mostly get poked fun at, but as we speak (I type) my socks and shirts are drying—probably not as white as they could have been, and my sweatshirt probably is a little soapier than it should be due to my laziness, but what're ya gonna do. Me washing clothes by hands alone is enough to prove Adam Smith's theory about specialization of labor—too dorky?

I then ate my “lonché” snack w/ my host brother—white bread from Panaderia Omar, tea, and drinkable yogurt (fuck).

Finally I headed down to the health post for the meeting w/ Raúl. The meeting was going to take place in the “centro poblado” of Jahua. I really had no idea what the meeting was about. We headed up in a taxi w/ the health post's doctor Cynthia. First we broke a 100 soles bill at the gas station to pay—change can be a real bitch here—the guy broke it w/ a 50 and 10 5 sol coins—change purses are a necessity here.

We finally arrived and met up w/ a few people near the puesto de salud they have in Jahua. Raúl talked to them for a couple of minutes in a mix of Spanish and Quechua—I picked up a bit of it, but the gist was that the mayor wasn't around and we should post-pone the meeting. We decided to move it to Saturday at 5. Then we headed out of Jahua, and that was almost that.

I asked what the meeting was about on the way down and Raúl told me it was about an issue they've been having w/ “gestantes” pregnant woman—that don't follow up w/ their medications—recently there was one woman that took only 2 days of a 5 day prescription for an infection she had—which can lead to serious issues. They had had other problems with gestantes recently too, and they had decided it was time to have a meeting w/ authorities to put some weight behind their medical orders.

On the way down we ran into the mayor walking up, which changed our plans. We reversed and headed back to hold the meeting—better to get it over with when we actually had the politician during election season than to try to post-pone it.

Before continuing I must add an important phrase about the upcoming bit: “As I understood it” part of this title, is an important phrase when you're living in a totally different culture, where not only do they not speak your native language, but they only speak the foreign language you know half the time—the other half is Quechua.

We headed to the municipality and jammed a bunch of chairs into the mayor's office. At the meeting there was a gestante with her (I believe) husband a few of her kids. Raúl opened the meeting up (standing when he spoke) with the issue at hand. Dr. Cynthia then talked about how the medical post physicians and nurses are held responsible if something preventable were to happen to the pregnant woman—that in other cases, for similar issues, doctors and nurses can be fired from health posts for the patient's negligence. To protect the women's well being, and to avoid this scenario, it was necessary to come to an agreement about the pregnant woman's health issue—that she must take responsibility for taking the necessary medicines and for coming to the necessary checkups (which many women have not been completing). In cases where someone is acting in negligence to another's health the health post as a state-run organization can make a “denuncia” and bring in serious authorities.

With all this being said, and the mayor and health promoters of the town making the case for the necessity of modern medicine practices (mostly done in Quechua to the pregnant woman)--we came to an agreement about the situation—that the mayor and other authorities would talk to the other pregnant women, and that it was necessary for the pregnant women to take responsibility, and that they had been properly warned by the members of the health post. Raúl said he would return to finish this woman's medicine to fend off the infection over the next few days.

As is custom, this agreement was written up, everyone (except the husband) that was at the meeting including myself signed the document, and we photocopied it.

Mid-way through the meeting, someone asked what the hell I was doing (they asked in Quechua so I assume this is what they asked) and Raúl explained that I was with Cuerpo de Paz and spoke Spanish, was learning Quechua and was in Jangas to support education and health programs. What followed were lots of words and phrases in Quechua and lots of laughs (I really have to start learning Quechua—I notice it's usually the language the jokes are made in—maybe this is cause the jokes are usually made about me, but hey—comic relief certainly didn't hurt at a meeting like this one).

We headed back in taxi, stopped for sheep in the middle of the road on the way down, and that was that. I came home, ate spaghetti, popcorn and potatoes (my diet has drastically changed since Middlebury's cafeteria), and now it's about time for the “The Pacific” w/ my host-cousin Chara—thank god for subtitles.

Matthew, my REAL brother (I get a little sick of host this and host that every once and a while)--told me before I came that I'd come back wanting to be a doctor—this is still not the case (2 years of Post-bac and 4 years of med-school? yuck), but I'm definitely becoming more and more interested in health promotion.

Much Love from Ancash.

Johncito (what most people call me here—little John, despite me being the tallest person I've seen in the past month :).

PS: Aunt Doreen—all the foodie references are for you! Come visit and I'll take you to really good Ceviche and then when we get to Ancash LOTS of potatoes.

PhotoCredit—This is a Brown Swooooosh cow here in Jangas, Ancash—he says hello to his friends in Shelburne, Vermont.